Bottom of the Pile - Feb. 5th, 2015

Angela: Asgard's Assassin

The Guardians of the Galaxy film confirmed to be exist as a biopic in the Marvel U.

Anyway, despite Angela's new costume, this book gets harder to read with every issue.  First she's a member of a race that's so assholish even Odin was like "fuck off" and shifted them into their own reality.   Now she's out in the middle of space demanding "friends" to give up their living quarters.   What happened to manners?   For that matter, what happened to "nothing for nothing", that horrible code by which she's supposed to live her life? 

Avengers

When you were undoubtedly sure that things could not become worse, then surfaced That Thing You Forgot.  The core idea behind the incursions is that the meeting point between one universe and another is always Earth.   If you can keep those two Earths from colliding, both universes are saved.  The subject of exactly how one might keep said Earths from colliding has been the subject of much debate in both New Avengers and Avengers, but one thing's for certain no matter how you look at it: the easiest option is to just destroy Earth altogether, so what happens when races from other planets discover what the Avengers have known for some time now? 

Y'know, as cool as it was to have Batman counting Batarangs like each one mattered, it's kind of hard to believe Batman's "struggling" in terms of supplies when he can still summon in the Batplane to do shit like this. 

Batman Eternal

Francis Manapul and Brian Bucellato have been doing as good a job of Detective as they did on Flash, but I'm having a bit of trouble buying this panel.  As a fellow portly gentleman, even in the best of conditions, there's no way Bullock is rappelling down a rope like that.   But at night in freezing temperatures while it's snowing?  I know, comics and all, but c'mon.  If he could do all that, he wouldn't have been overweight in the first place. 

Grayson

I'm constantly torn between wanting my boy Richard Grayson back in the blue-and-black as Nightwing, and actually liking this book.  Little father-son moments like this make me lean more towards the latter, as I'm starting to realize this whole book's concept was like sending Dick off to college.  An incredibly dangerous college for super-spies where he's in fact a double-agent that could be brainwashed or killed at any moment, but nothing in a superhero's life is ever quite normal, right?

Guardians of the Galaxy & X-Men - Black Vortex Alpha

Remember when Star Lord actually formed the Guardians of the Galaxy with the express purpose of defending the universe from any threats before they got started and could turn into the massive problems that were the Annihilation Wave and the Phalanx?   The guy who wanted to be proactive about defending everyone?   Whatever happened to that guy? 

Ms. Marvel

And so, Ms. Marvel's first "real" adventure comes to an end with the help of the friendly neighborhood New Jersey P.D.   In that time she's discovered where her powers came from, had team-ups with Spider-Man and Wolverine, and even got a puppy.   All's well that end's well, right?

Ms. Marvel's one of the few new heroes that doesn't make me want to throw things.  She doesn't automatically know how to do things right--she makes mistakes, she needs help.   But even though they're making her journey a gradual one, she's still able to inspire those around her to be better.  Of course now she has to deal with the impending end of the entire universe, but hey--she spent enough time in the shallow end, right?

Superman

So Superman's new power comes with a drawback--the loss of his powers for an entire day.  What concerns me here is power creep.  The longer a power like this stays around, the more likely they are to forget about what should be a hardline rule.   Eventually he'll be able to control how much of that super flare he uses, or he'll be able to do it without losing his powers--it'll be another in a long list of reasons of why everyone thinks Superman is overpowered as shit.

That is, if it sticks around and people don't immediately forget he has it within a year or so.

New 52: Futures End

It's a bird!  It's a plane!  It's, "you're forty issues too late to actually DO anything"-man!

Transformers: More than Meets the Eye

Being surrounded by nothing other than stars, how would you even be able to tell that nothing was moving?   That said, in addition to being longer than usual I believe, this issue had a delightful twist ending that makes me wonder if More than Meets the Eye will even be apart of the upcoming Combiner Wars, as it appears to me the crew of the Lost Light will indeed too busy to deal with any of that.  Time will tell, one supposes.

Author's Note: Bottom of the Pile is a weekly column (or at least, my attempt at said) in which I cover the comics that found their way to the bottom of my reading stack, thus being the "best".   Since bog standard reviews can be found literally anywhere, coverage here can range from mini-reviews to funny comments to commentary on a creator's run or comics as a whole, depending on a wide range of factors including the comic itself, the amount of time I have, and my general mood.